The Bite
by Hellsleprechaun
Summary: Kol does something stupid, even by his standards and manages to get himself bitten by a hybrid. The bite won't kill him, but his long-suffering siblings will have to take care of him throughout his painful recovery.


**I do not own the vampire diaries, it belongs to L.J Smith and the CW.**

As Kol shuffled sluggishly along the streets of Mystic Falls, he considered the fact that he was a complete idiot.

It should not have come as such a surprise to him, he had been told as much by many people over the years: his mother, his father, Finn, Sage (not that he really cared what she thought), Nik, Rebekah. Elijah had never actually called him an idiot, but he had often told him that he had behaved idiotically, which was supposed to be different, but Kol did not see how. He had always disagreed with them but now… well it was impossible to.

He could argue that _there was nothing wrong with staying in a bar with a few hybrids, he was an original, if he needed to he could kill them, Nik would be furious, but he'd get over it. _He could even go as far as to say, _it was not that reckless to actually sit with and taunt them, there were only two of them. _However, even he had to accept that it was completely moronic to flirt with the female hybrid. She was not even that pretty, certainly not unattractive, but nothing special. He was only trying to anger them, for amusement of course.

So here he was, wandering down the street with a festering bite on his shoulder, it was bleeding quite a lot, he could feel the blood soaking through his shirt, and seeping across the chest and arm.

_This shirt is going to be ruined forever, _he thought dazedly.

He stumbled and the world tilted around him, he held himself upright against a stable picket fence and paused for ten seconds. He breathed heavily through the pain and began to move again once everything stopped spinning.

He was unsure of how long he had been walking before he saw his house, his gigantic, gigantic house, and teetered towards it, leaning against the door for support and pressing his finger against the bell, so one long, continuous ring bleated out.

The door was wrenched open by Rebekah and he promptly fell forwards into her arms, she caught him with ease and he distantly heard her calling for Elijah and Nik, then she began talking to him, shrilly at first, demanding to know what happened, then softly as she saw the bite. She began to whisper that everything was going to be alright, that he would be fine.

He heard an oath as Klaus laid eyes on him, then Elijah wanting to know what happened. He must have missed the part where Rebekah explained, because nobody shouted at him, or called him a idiot, and Nik wasn't annoyed about him messing with his hybrids.

Elijah took Kol's weight from his sister, he knew it was pointless, she was an original vampire, she could quite easily carry Kol, but he was used to carrying things for her, it was habit by now. He scooped his youngest brother up, blocking out the whimpers that came out at being moved.

Klaus and Rebekah followed him as he carried Kol up the stairs and into his room, the young man cried out as he was placed gently on the bed, "it hurts." He wept, and tears began to roll down from his eyes.

Niklaus growled in fury as he pulled his brother's shirt aside and saw the bite, it was huge and blistering already. "Come on, Kol, it's going to be okay." He soothed as he began to try and move Kol to take his shirt off to get a better view of the wound. It was a mistake, Kol let out an agonised howl that dissolved into wrenching sobs. "I'm sorry, " he whispered. He and Rebekah ended up tearing the shirt off Kol in strips, he didn't have to move but he cried harder when they had to pull at the fabric that had dried to his skin with blood.

"Can you give him your blood?" Rebekah asked desperately.

"It won't work, we tried with Finn, it had no effect." He reminded her. Over nine hundred years ago, Finn had been bitten by a werewolf, they had seen the same happen to others, others who had died. Elijah had had the idea that Klaus, as a half vampire-half werewolf, could help. They had fed him Klaus' blood to no avail, they had all given up hope and resigned themselves to sitting by Finn's side as he died. But he had not, he had been in a lot of pain, he had wept because it hurt so badly, but he had slowly begun to get better. To their collective relief they discovered that a werewolf bite could not kill an original, but that did not mean they wanted to experience one.

"You weren't a proper hybrid then. Try now!" She snapped, taking Kol's hand in hers and wincing as he squeezed hard enough to crack the bones, but did not let go.

Sighing, he bit deep into his wrist and held it to his brother's mouth. "Drink, Kol." He ordered, when Kol didn't move. He snarled in frustration and grabbed Kol forcefully and held his mouth to his wrist and repeated his command. Kol gave in and began reluctantly drinking his blood. After a minute or so, Klaus removed his arm and they all stared tensely at the bite, ignoring Kol's muffled sounds of suffering.

"Damn it!" Rebekah cried, the bite was not going away, it was not getting any better, in fact it had grown since Kol had returned home. "What do we do now?"

"There's nothing we can do." Elijah stated grimly.

"Am I going to die?" Kol sobbed, reaching his hand up to touch the bite, only for Klaus to hold his hand down.

"No, " the hybrid spoke surprisingly gently. "Don't you remember what happened to Finn?"

Kol did not reply, he just let out an agonised moan, and bit his lip hard enough to draw blood. "It hurts so much."

Elijah left the room swiftly, leaving just Klaus, Kol and Rebekah. The latter of who's hand was still enclosed in Kol's.

"W…where's he going?" Kol sounded so scared in that moment that Nik found himself softening towards him and sat down on the bed beside him, so he was between himself and Rebekah.

"He'll be back." He promised his brother, unsure of how to comfort him. Kol had never really got himself injured very often before, not properly injured at least. He had been staked before, and died temporarily, but that was not as painful as one might imagine. Kol had always been protected from any trouble he got into by one of his brothers or his sister.

Bekah, seeing her brother's uncertainty, spoke. "What would you do if it were me?" she knew that it was harder for her brothers to show affection towards each other than to her. She rolled her eyes, "it's ridiculous, because you're _men _you can't show feelings, no, no, only _women _have feelings." She mocked in a silly deep voice.

"Fine." Klaus said stubbornly and took Kol's other hand in his.

Kol shocked both of them by speaking, "you two are… the ridiculous ones. You're so… pig-headed." He seemed to be laughing, but stopped with a groan when the movement hurt too much. He appeared to be trying to shake Nik's hand loose from his feebly.

"Am I being rejected by my darling little brother?" Klaus asked with pretend devastation. Although he would not admit it, he felt a slight dejection, one of the only times he tried to reach out and he was being rejected.

"Yes… you're just proving a point to Bekah." He mumbled and his eyes drifted closed again, Klaus dropped his hand.

"See? He's happier this way too." Niklaus insisted.

Rebekah scoffed, "you know, Nik, sometimes you're a real bastard."

"Thank you sister, love you too."

They did not have to wait long for Elijah to return, he was carrying a bowl of hot water and a cloth.

Klaus raised an eyebrow, "what's that for? He's not giving birth in an old western."

"Who's giving birth?" Kol's eyes opened again.

Nik held back the almost overpowering urge to tease his brother and tell him _you_, but no, now was not the appropriate moment. He could wait until another time.

"If we wash the wound, it should help it to heal faster."

Rebekah bit her tongue to keep from crying out as Kol's grip on her hand tightened. Klaus, seeing her expression, grasped his little brother's hand again. When Kol attempted to shake him off for a second time, he resolved to ignore it, and held a little tighter. It did not take long for Kol to give up, or get weak enough that Klaus couldn't feel his efforts anymore.

Elijah began to clean the bite as gently as he could, but that did not stop Kol from growling, yelping and eventually screaming for him to get away from him, Rebekah and Klaus' comforting hands became restraining. They held Kol down and tried to calm him as he thrashed and kicked out at Elijah. The water was burning him, it was trickling into the holes in his skin and causing everything to sting.

Finally Elijah stopped and Kol's stomach turned as he saw that the cloth was coated with blood, pus and a disgusting, vile smelling gunk. The water itself was red tinted and strands of the mucus were floating around the surface.

He looked at his sister, her eyes were filled with tears but they had not fallen and was confused for a minute before he saw her hand in his, with a sense of horror he realised that during his screeching fit, he had snapped at least one of the main bones.

"Bekah…I…I'm sorry." He grunted, ignoring the desire to curl up and scream until the throbbing ache that was now radiating throughout his whole body was gone.

"That's okay, Kol. I'll knock your teeth out another time." She smiled, although the tears marred it.

Three hours later, Rebekah was dead on her feet, no pun intended. Elijah finally managed to convince her to go to bed, she agreed only as long as they promised to wake her if anything else happened.

Elijah and Klaus remained in the room with a sleeping Kol, Elijah in a chair next to the bed and Nik sitting beside Kol on the bed.

"How long do you think this will take?" Niklaus asked with impatience, Elijah glared for a moment, tempted to snap back at him, but did not.

"Do not worry, Niklaus. You can be back with your hybrids tomorrow if you would like, we can care for Kol without you."

"That wasn't what I meant, and you know it." He spoke calmly, he could not blame Elijah for his reaction, he knew he was upset, even if he would not show it, to have had to be the one who hurt Kol. Even if it was for his own good.

Elijah nodded once in agreement. "I don't know. How long did it take, Finn?"

Klaus thought back, but it was difficult, it had happened over nine hundred years ago, even with a vampire's memory, it was not easy to recall events that far back. "A few days, maybe."

"He'll be okay. We'll just have to look after him, we'll take it in shifts. You go to bed now, I'll wake you up in a few hours, and you can watch him."

Kol woke up with a loud whimper, _Jesus Christ, it hurts!_

He sat up with a great deal of difficulty and suddenly Elijah was standing at his side, looking extremely concerned, or as concerned as Elijah could look anyway, what with his extreme stoicism.

"Do you need to be somewhere?" He inquired.

"No," Kol replied with confusion, his brows furrowing.

"Good." Elijah responded and pushed him down again lightly. "Go back to sleep."

"I'm not tired." He smirked knowingly, he and Elijah had had many conversations to this effect over the millennium.

"Try." He insisted and ,seeing that Kol had kicked his covers half-way off the bed at some point, pulled them back over him.

"Thanks."

Kol did not go back to sleep, instead he and Elijah sat up, neither of them able to sleep. Kol was in constant pain, it would not ebb, however he could manage it, he could think past it, and keep himself silent. Every so often the pain would rise to a peak, his bite would smoulder, his bones would feel like they were going to shatter and his skin would burn. He could never stay quiet during these periods, and Elijah would normally try and hold him down to prevent him from thrashing and harming himself further. Kol was not sure about how long had passed, when Elijah told him that he was going to go and get Niklaus so he could watch him.

"I don't need him to watch me. I'd be better off on my own. He's probably just going to yell about his hybrids." He whispered.

Elijah smiled slightly, "you'd be surprised. He may be, as you call him, a dick, but he cares about you, more than he'll ever tell you." Elijah informed him with only a minimal amount of awkwardness.

He kissed him on the head once and told him he'd see him in the morning.

Kol suppressed a groan as Klaus walked in. When he saw him properly he began to chuckle, until it was cut off by a moan as a burst of pain shot through his shoulder. He was dressed in grey sweat pants and a crumpled grey t-shirt, his blonde curls were crushed in parts and he was yawning.

Nik stared at him uncertainly, not sure whether to ask about the pain or the laughter.

"You look so… normal." He explained.

"What?"

"You don't look like your evil hybrid self… you look…"

"Like a guy who just got out of bed in the middle of the night?" He supplied tiredly.

"Yes."

Klaus sat beside him on the bed again and leaned back, when Kol glared at him accusingly, he rolled his eyes. "What? Don't complain about me trapping you under your covers, you can't even move properly."

"Thanks for the reminder."

"You're welcome, brother."

They lapsed into silence, Nik assumed that Kol had fallen back to sleep when he began to talk. "When are you going to start? Elijah's gone, Bekah's sleeping."

"When am I going to start what?" Klaus questioned suspiciously.

"Bitching me out. I provoked your _precious _hybrids, are you not about to threaten to dagger me again?"

"No, I'm not going to dagger you, Kol." He let out a long suffering sigh.

"Why not?" He loathed how childish that had sounded, although his brother grinned.

"Why do you think?" He asked, as though it were obvious.

"Because you're a lunatic with an ulterior motive?" He suggested.

"No, because Mikael is gone, so is Esther. We have nothing to run from. I… "thinking about his conversation with Rebekah earlier, he "manned up", as she would put it and continued, "you're my brother, I don't want to kill you. After a thousand years, I've grown attached."

"But you're still mad about the hybrids?" He predicted.

"Absolutely, I'm furious. First thing tomorrow I'm going to find them and kill them."

"Wait, what?" Kol attempted to sit up and was, for the second time that night, pushed gently back down again. "You're going to kill _them_?"

"Yes, obviously." Klaus was gazing at him as though he were a simpleton. "This bite is clearly effecting you worse than we thought."

"I thought…." He trailed off, unsure exactly of how to continue.

"_What_?" It only took the man a few seconds to work it out. "You thought I was going to punish you for this?" He was incredulous.

"Even I admit what I did was stupid."

"Admittedly, that must mean it was particularly moronic. What did you do, exactly?" They had established that he had been bitten by a hybrid, but they were still unsure about the circumstances.

"Walked into the grill. Saw two of your hybrids, sat down with them, provoked them." He said simply.

"And they bit you?"

"The girl bit me… after I kept flirting with her… in front of her boyfriend."

"Jesus, Kol!" He groaned, covering his eyes with his hands for a second. "Sometimes, I think you have a death wish."

"Like Finn?"

Klaus glowered at him, "if you think you're going to allow yourself to be murdered by those _amateurs _then you're very much mistaken."

"You'd rather you were the one to do it?" His tone was laced with bitterness.

"No, for god's sake!" Klaus snapped, then calmed down and continued casually, "why do you always presume that I want to murder you? Don't get me wrong, you're a pain in the arse a good deal of the time, but I would prefer it if you were alive."

"Are you kidding me? "He laughed in surprise, "maybe because you've killed me before now."

"That was one time."

"You stuck a dagger in my heart. I know Elijah says you did it to protect me from Mikael but, believe it or not, it's still not easy to trust you."

His brother paused for the longest time and Kol was starting to think that he was just going to frostily ignore him for the rest of his "shift" ,when he replied, "that's fair, I suppose."

He was stunned, Nik was being reasonable? This was new.

"What are you going to do about the hybrids, now?" The circumstances were different now, Klaus knew that he was to blame.

"Kill them." Catching Kol's confusion, he elaborated. "I can't have hybrids who attack my family in my army."

"You're not a country." He pointed out.

"So?"

"So you can't have an army."

"Says who?" Klaus smirked teasingly.

"Says… whoever makes these laws." Kol scrambled for an answer.

Klaus laughed noisily, and beamed at his brother, he had missed him. He had forgotten how much Kol made him laugh, something not that many people could do.

They sat, joking and laughing together for a while, occasionally talking about the past, both avoiding three main subjects: their father, their mother and Finn. The second most of all, it would be a long time before any of them were comfortable speaking about that woman.

Klaus enjoyed speaking with Kol, but every time the bite began to become really sore and Kol couldn't hold back his suffering, he was overcome with a feeling of helplessness. He did not know what he was supposed to do, he could not hug him, they were not the kind of brothers who hugged and even if they were, touching Kol's bite would only increase his discomfort. He was not particularly useful when it came to soothing words, when somebody was upset, it was usually because of him. On the rare occasion that it was not, he either ignored them or hurt the person responsible. He was planning to do that tomorrow, but right now Kol needed him.

"It's okay, Kol. It's okay." He made his voice as soft and gentle as possible, which came much easier around his family than it did with any body else, easier than he would have expected.

"It's not okay!" He snarled, tears leaking from his already puffy eyes. "Ugh! How long was Finn like this! God! The only time he would have been of any use to us and he's not here. Well, shouldn't be surprised, he always let us down anyway." He was filled with so much resentment for Finn, he had always behaved coldly towards them all, he had never wanted to spend time with any of them, and there were only a couple of incidents when he actually liked his older brother. And now, when he really wished he was here, to understand, to help, he was dead.

"It was a few days." Klaus replied grudgingly, knowing the truth would not help Kol but not wanting to lie to him.

At the horrified expression on his face, he back peddled slightly, "he wasn't like this all the time. He began to get better. Although only after he got worse." He confessed.

As his brother writhed as the poison of the bite spread through his system, Nik took his hand and this time Kol did not fight him.

This pattern continued for the rest of the night, they would talk, laugh, Kol would go through another round of unbearable pain, he would get better, and occasionally fall into a hallucination. Most of them seemed to be from his human days, he was happy in the majority of them, at one point the thought he was talking to Henrich, it was not a serious conversation, or a particularly memorable one, just Kol teasing his little brother about a pretty girl he liked, Klaus could not even remember if it was real or not.

In another he was crying because he had fallen and cut his knee open, this one seemed more familiar, he suspected Kol was speaking to Elijah, he was the one Kol would have run to if he were hurt. Recalling Kol's worry about Elijah leaving earlier, he supposed that that was still true.

"Nik" Kol breathed feebly, "help."

Klaus stared down at him as he realised that Kol was not dreaming or seeing things anymore, he needed him. He was trying to push himself up, and Klaus got hold of him and pulled him up without any difficulty.

Kol slumped against him, and he wrapped an arm around his back to keep him in place, just in time for Kol to choke and violently cough blood all over his shirt, he patted his back until all of it was out and he lay him back down.

Kol's pale, blood stained lips twitched as though he wanted to smile. He made an unattractive rasping sound and Klaus snorted as he saw he was laughing.

"And there was I thinking we were bonding," He shook his head with mock sadness.

"You're my brother, and I have some respect for you, but ruining your stuff is still funny."

"You have _some _respect for me?"

Nik woke the next morning to see Elijah shaking him lightly. "Ugh, what?" He mumbled, wiping sleep from his eyes.

"You fell asleep and forgot to wake Rebekah." He informed him levelly.

"What time is it?" He cleared his throat to try and sound somewhat composed.

"7:01."

"Thanks for being so specific, brother."

"You should go to bed, I woke you at 1:00AM, and you were supposed to wake Rebekah at 4:00."

"I thought I'd let her sleep, after all she had a pretty rough night, what with having her hand crushed by Kol."

"Careful, Niklaus, somebody might suspect you were growing a heart."

"No, I certainly have a heart, but I'm like that wonderful green man from… that Christmas film, you know the one whose heart is three sizes too small."

Elijah raised one eyebrow, his expression saying that he believed Niklaus had lost his mind.

"The Grinch?" Klaus asked, as though Elijah was the insane one. "I'm disappointed, Elijah, very disappointed."

Over the next three days, Kol improved slightly, he could keep down a few mouthfuls of blood, the bursts of agony and hallucinations were considerably less and he could keep himself awake. However, Elijah and Niklaus were both becoming very concerned, it had been three days and he was not better, he still complained obnoxiously about the pain and could not get himself out of bed. Elijah, Klaus and Rebekah still had to take turns in looking after him and they were wondering if something had gone wrong with Kol's recovery, maybe he was weaker than Finn had been.

Elijah and Klaus had left the house to discuss this matter further, they were talking about perhaps asking a witch to try and help Kol, Bonnie maybe, even though she hated them.

They had left Rebekah to take care of Kol and, while they trusted her, they did not feel it was fair to leave her with the responsibility for too long. As they headed back into the house they heard a strange sound- laughter. Loud, healthy, happy sounding laughter.

Elijah held a finger to his lips and Nik nodded, silently they crept towards Kol's room where he was supposed to be sick. They were initially pleased, and then irritated to see him on his feet, playing a tennis game on the wii with Rebekah.

They stopped guiltily as they saw their brothers watching them with raised eyebrows.

"When did you recover?" Klaus asked, half amused, half exasperated.

"The morning after I was bitten."

As his blonde brother advanced towards him menacingly, Kol backed away with his hands up, "now, come on, Nik, we were bonding!" He insisted, as Bekah sniggered evilly.

"Yes, Kol. And we can do even more bonding when I make you my personal slave for the rest of eternity." He growled.

"Elijah!" Kol appealed to his relatively sane brother.

"Sorry, Kol, I fear you're still too ill to go outside, you may just have to stay in and do as Niklaus says." Elijah smirked and attempted to contain the chuckle that threatened to burst out at the disbelieving expression plastered across Kol's face.

**The end.**

**Prompt form Ooshaboosha.**

**I remember in the season 2 episode "Klaus", Elijah said that a werewolf bite couldn't kill an original but I don't remember if he said it could hurt them or not, for the purposes of this, I'll pretend that it can.**

**Please review.**


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